Each morning you’ve been saying to yourself: “I’m not going to eat snacks today”.
But, come mid morning, the urge for a biscuit is irresistible and your intention flies out of the window. Or, though sheer willpower you manage for a few days, until your resolve dissolves, leaving you feeling deflated and defeated. You know you’ll better off not eating those sugary/fatty foods, but you can’t quite get there.
One of my clients, Paula wanted to learn how use computer software to quickly summarise her questionnaire responses. She methodically followed my directions, but I could tell from the time it was taking that the penny hadn’t dropped. So we went through the explanation and the steps a couple more times.
Suddenly she came to life exclaiming “Aha, now I see what I’m doing! I don’t need these instructions any more”. What she was learning had sunk in at a deep level – she had reached a core understanding. From then on the task became effortless for her.
Like Penny’s learning, your intention to avoid snacks needs to filter down to a deep level. This means it needs to settle down from your mind into your heart, where it can access the unlimited power of the Universe. Once you access this power that is vastly deeper than your own, you’ll find yourself easily able to avoid snacks.
When your intention comes solely from your mind, you depend on your willpower to keep it going. Willpower is hard work, so you easily give in to snacking again.
The following steps will help you stick to your intention “not to eat snacks today”.
How to avoid snacks today (and every day)
1. Make your intention positive
“I’m not going to eat snacks today” includes the negative word “not”, which your subconscious doesn’t recognise. If you keep saying to yourself “I’m not going to eat snacks today” your attention is still being drawn to snacks.
Your intention will be much more powerful if you express it as a positive statement which focuses on what you do want to do, rather than what you don’t want to do. For example I turned my intention round to: “Today I will only eat at mealtimes”.
How will you phrase your intention, in a positive way?
2. Remind yourself of your intention …
Early each day, remind yourself of your intention. For most people, writing it down is more powerful than just saying it to yourself.
Paula and I went over the steps required to use the software several times – taking it in into her mental awareness. She could just manage to use the software, but it was a struggle.
Then, you need to give your intention more power, by allowing it to settle deeper…
3. … and, allow it to settle into your heart
Sometimes the intention to avoid snacks immediately resonates at a deep level; it comes to you fully mature and deeply-rooted in your heart.
More often, you need to patiently allow it to settle; ‘sit’ with it, allow it to incubate, until it eventually filters down into your heart. This is an ‘allowing’ process, that you can’t force. It may happen in an instant, or it may take a few days. All you need to do is be patient, be gentle with yourself, and be open to allowing your intention to root deeply into your heart.
Paula was keen to learn how to use the software, so while her mind was taking in the steps, the process behind them was qiuckly filtering down to a deeper level.
For me, it took about a week of writing my intention down and being patient while it settled, until one morning there was a ‘kerchunk’, and I knew my intention had really settled. No more questions or doubts. Come what may, I was only going to eat at mealtimes that day. And that’s exactly what happened; regardless of the biscuit tin, or the snacks my family was eating, I wasn’t at all tempted to snack between meals.
4. Nurture your intention into a habit
Once your intention is rooted into your heart, keep re-setting your intention each day until it becomes a habit.
After about three weeks of setting your intention daily, it will become a habit. Then you’ll do it automatically without thinking. So, keep setting your intention each day until you’re sure it’s become a habit to eat only at mealtimes.
I still write down my intention to only eat at mealtimes, as it’s a relatively new intention for me. And I’m enjoying feeling hungry at the start of each meal, and letting go of a few pounds.
On the other hand, after more than a year, my daily exercise routine has long been a fully-fledged habit, so I no longer need to set that intention each day.
The Delicious Nugget: Using willpower alone ‘not to snack’ is hard work, and eventually doomed to fail. Just as Paula allowed the software steps to slowly root more deeply into her understanding, you can allow your intention to settle into your heart where it will access a deep power, which makes it easy ‘to eat only at meal times’.
